How could I not love Mireille Guiliano, a woman who shares my love of travel as well as my not so secret passion:  drinking good champagne as often as possible.  Any evening can be a celebration once you pop the cork — and we do quite often.  Toasts freely given and received often set the tone for the evening, and a sip seems like drinking stars.

The tips she shares are good ones.  Over the years, I have found that too few of my friends use the conceirge at the hotel.  Instead, I find that waste precious vacation time standing in lines in London and New York to access tickets to theater.  Just a moment with the hotel’s conceirge and, after a day spent wandering the city, you return to find the best seats in the house for theatre that night waiting for you.  I have never been disappointed.  Suggestions and reservations for dinner done in this way open the door to some of my most memorable dining experiences, especially in Europe.  After a long day on my feet in museums, I also find that ordering room service is often far less costly and decidedly more comfy than waiting for service down the street when you are tired.  I always - always - put the "do not disturb" sign out and have a TV on low if I am leaving my room in the evening - a simple precaution but hopefully a smart one.

Not all of us stay at the kind of place that have concierges. I stay at budget hotels, bed & breakfast places (in Europe they’re not the fancy-schmancy expensive inns they are in the U.S., they’re inexpensive places to stay) & even hostels.  I can travel more often, stay longer, & often someone at the hotel is a traveler who’s been to or is from the place I’m going to next & has great tips for that place.

Not eating on the plane isn’t always practical. For me, getting to Europe means leaving from Chicago.  That means getting to where the O’ Hare Express leaves from, a coach trip of an hour & a half to Chicago, arriving the recommended two hours ahead of time for an international flight (I give myself at least an half-hour more than that because my replacement knees set off alarms & I have to be wanded or patted down), then an eight hour plus flight to Heathrow (my starting point for most European trips), then going through customs, getting my train pass validated, exchanging some cash, then a Tube ride into town.  Ms Guiliano is suggesting I spend at least 14 hours with no food but a banana & a package of nuts?  Or is she advocating eating airport restaurant food, which is expemsive & IMO, not any better than airline food?

I don’t know which airport she travels from, but I’ve never been in one where I cannot buy bottled water at some point after airport security & before boarding.  I always take a bottle or two of water on with me, so I have it right away & don’t have to wait until the plane is in the air before hassling the plane staff.

Ms. Guiliano’s description of her demands for water on board just might make her the kind of unpleasant passenger airline staff write about in memoirs.

This person, Guilano, is a nationalistic pathetic snob.

Read here:

http://www.readersread.com/features/mireilleguiliano.htm

She advocates boozing up kids (which has been provably shown to increase adult alcohol abuse) and constantly  talks about French this and that.

It kills me she talks as is she has savoir faire but she is repulsive, apparently doesn’t have kids and engaged in nearly perpetual hedonism and unnecessary travel.

Simply put, Guilano DISGUSTS me.